13th Hour

by Tammie Painter

  ***

  “My life is a sham.”

  Staring into the bathroom mirror, I say this to myself every afternoon upon waking. With the late nights at the club I haven't seen morning for some time. I miss the calm of dawn – waking up to it, rather than going to sleep to it – and the ritual of coffee as birds make the only sound. Waking in the afternoon, the world is up and mowing, driving, chatting and drowning out the sounds of nature with every chance it gets.

  My training, my experience, my past life was as a naturalist, or “Wildlife Biologist III” to use the government's job title. I loved nature so much I wanted to spend my life studying and telling others about it, but cuts to grants pushed me out of a career. I was downsized out of my real life.

  I tried other jobs, but sitting at a desk all day typing meeting minutes and entering someone else’s data made me miserable. I should have been entering my own data and writing journal articles. I’m great at taking things apart, putting them back together, not so much – possibly too much time spent dissecting things - so a typical manly job with tools and mechanical bits would never work. I can draw pretty well, but artists are about as employable as scientists these days. I even flipped burgers for a while. A PhD and I’m flipping all-beef (so they say) patties. I quit after the first paycheck and spent the next week scrubbing the smell of grease from my hair.

  Retail? I spent my career trying to preserve nature and reduce our impact on it. How could I sell out to promote conspicuous consumption? Quite easily it seems when the mortgage loomed over me like an elephant's foot over a dung beetle. I thought perhaps the department store would hire me to sell electronics or garden tools. Instead, the store manager believed I’d do best in cosmetics. I didn’t know blush from bronzer, but she insisted.

  “You say you need money and the commission is best there. With all the formulas and ingredients it’s kind of scientific.” She arched her too-black eyebrows waiting for an agreeing nod from me, but she didn’t need one. She had made her choice for my future and I needed the cash too badly to argue. “Besides, your face will attract the ladies. Those eyes and cheekbones will draw them in like flies to honey.”

  In a pretense of looking knowledgeable enough to tell women about toner and SPF, I donned my store-issued white lab jacket. It wouldn’t be the last costume I’d put on to make money, but this one came with my name embroidered across the breast pocket.

  It wasn’t bad. I was moving around and getting to talk to and flirt with attractive women. One day though, the customers weren’t coming. Stocks plummeted the day before and I think everyone was too financially nervous to go shopping. My co-worker, Sally, alphabetized the eye shadows and I dusted every corner of the displays. By eleven a.m. boredom overwhelmed us.

  “Let’s do your make-up,” she said making a tick mark on a scrap of paper to denote the passing of another fifteen minutes.

  “Um, Sally, I’m a guy. Just putting that out there in case you hadn’t notice.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve got a great face. Every woman would kill to have your eyelashes and lips. C’mon, you can wash it right off.”

  I debated. I was bored, but was I bored enough to have my colors done in the middle of a public area? What if my ex-wife walked in? Wait, no one was walking in. What the hell, why not?

  “Fine, but do it quick. And none of that god awful purple or anything Day-Glo.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be so beautiful I’ll have to start hating you.” She patted her chair indicating for me to sit and indulge her whim.

  So I sat. Sally smoothed moisturizer and a light foundation over my face as I marveled over the turn my vocabulary had taken. The sweeping of the blusher and puff of powder tickled, but I obeyed Sally’s orders not to sneeze. I worked at stretching my face just right for her to apply the eye makeup and then looking up far enough to get the mascara on without smudging. Embarrassing as it potentially could be, it felt good to have attention paid to me and I realized now why the women Sally finished with walked away bearing a glow as if they were the queens of the earth.

  Sally stood back and admired her handiwork.

  “You’re pretty,” she gushed. “Oh, here.” She grabbed a women’s hat – a sequined number with a feather - from the rack across the counter and fixed it onto me.

  I scowled at her. “This was not part of the deal.”

  “Oh, but you’re divine.”

  “Okay, enough.” I started to pull the hat off.

  “Wait,” a husky voice commanded from behind. Sally’s eyes widened as her toothy smile transformed to a slack O.

  I turned and, worrying one of the managers had caught us, moved to finish removing the hat.

  “No, leave it,” the jowly man commanded. I knew who he was, everyone in Portland knew him. This unattractive mound of a fellow owned, managed, and performed at Illusions, Portland’s first and still most popular venue for cross-dressing acts. This man, Carl Dylan – a.k.a. Desiree Carlotta - who right now sported a heavy five o’clock shadow, covered his face in a few layers of makeup (I wondered in a flash if Sally ever did his colors), seated one of his many elaborately coiffed wigs on his head, donned as many sequins as possible and put on a top rate variety show.

  From what I heard anyway.

  I’d never been to Illusions. I didn’t have anything against it, to each his own, but I never understood the attraction of watching men dress up as women. Except for Monty Python and Kids in the Hall, of course.

  A meaty hand took my chin and tilted my head gently one way and then the next making judgmentally approving sounds. He let me go and pulled out a business card as he eyed the name embroidered on my left breast pocket.

  “Ray, you’ve got a great face. Got any other talents?”

  Sally nudged me. I’d told her too much about myself not to have her spill the beans if I didn’t confess. My mom, not liking the wild nature boy her son was becoming, sought to tame him by teaching me something refined.

  “I play piano.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what? You asked.”

  “No, do you play well?”

  “Oh, sorry, yeah, I guess so.”

  “Auditions are Tuesday nights. Come fully dressed.” I cringed knowing he meant in full drag. “If you make it you get $200 a night for a four-hour set. You do the math, probably a little more than you make here. If people like you, sometimes you’ll get tips as well. See you Tuesday.”

  And he turned to leave. Just like that. As if I had no questions. As if performing in drag was the next step I’d been hoping to take on my career ladder.

  Sally spun me around to face her. The invasion of my personal space over the past several minutes was getting out of hand.

  “You are totally doing this,” she urged.

  “No, I am totally not." I finally pulled off the hat, scooted away from her and grabbed a bottle of make up remover.

  “Ray, that’s fifty bucks an hour, just to play the piano.”

  “Not just play the piano. Play a piano in a dress.”

  “And heels. You’ll have to shave your legs too. It’s way easier than your face I’ve heard." Sally was already sending me to the she-wolves.

  “No.”

  “Fifty an hour, plus tips. Ray, you’re making minimum wage here plus a little commission selling makeup. You could triple that by wearing the makeup. I could get you the makeup for free and it would be easy to ‘borrow’ dresses from Formal Wear.”

  “And the size ten stilettos too, I suppose?”

  “Oh you don’t want to go the stiletto route at first,” she said as if I was seriously contemplating my wardrobe.

  I gave her an are-you-being-serious look.

  “Besides,” she continued, "it’d be hard to play piano in stilettos. The heels would get scuffed from working the pedals. A wedge would be better.”

  Of course Sally goaded me into auditioning. For this occasion we didn’t pilfer-then-return to the store – although that would become the modus operan
di for my performances. For the audition Sally handed me a slinky number I would have killed to see her in. She told me she got it for a trip to Vegas with a boyfriend that never panned out – the trip nor the boyfriend. She did my makeup, padded my bra, and slipped a pink bobbed wig on my head.

  “From Vegas?” I asked about the wig.

  “No, just for fun.” I found myself having an unexpected crush on Sally as she scanned me critically. “You’re going to have to take care of that,” she nodded toward my crotch. “I only do makeup.”

  “Take care?”

  “Tuck.”

  I looked in the mirror at the slight bulge and blushed. A few minutes in the bathroom and I met Sally’s approval.

  Carl was at the audition. He sat in the back in men’s clothes smoking a cigarette, looking more gangster than cross dresser. The contrast of wearing black sequins and hot pink hair and playing Beethoven’s Fur Elise sent my audience – ten men in drag – raving. They all lamented it was “ironically beautiful” although I wondered if they appreciated the music when one said he/she “just loved Mozart.”

  I took their applause and admiration over my “stunning” attire with all the grace I could. I didn’t know how to act. Here were ten men I knew to be men but gushing over me like a pack of over-enthusiastic aunties. What could I do? When in Rome, as they say. I gushed in equal amount over their dresses while trying not to think about the amount of tucking they'd done. Carl whooshed them away after a few minutes and told me to sit down at one of the tables

  “You want this job?” he asked.

  “It’s not my dream job, but the money is good.” The oddity of wearing a dress and speaking with my tenor voice threw me off for a second. “And mom would be proud. I’m finally using those piano lessons,” I quipped.

  “You’re straight, right?”

  Damned if a flashing image of Sally didn’t parade across my brain.

  “Yeah, is that a problem?”

  “I’m gonna level with you,” he took a long drag and then exhaled up and away from my face. “I’m straight. Most people don’t know that.”

  Carl/Desiree is coming out to me? Could my life get any stranger? Everyone in Portland, whether they approved, disapproved or didn't give a rat's ass assumed Carl was gay.

  “Well, okay,” I said, my voice indicating the do-you-have-a-point thought tramping through my head.

  “These ladies,” his head gestured toward the back stage to where my audience went, “are gay, or well, they,” he stumbled over his words. “I don’t know - they’re confused. When I started this club it was just a bunch of us being silly, but these days-- Well, I don’t know what these boys are. They’re gay is all the best I can describe it. Some date each other." He seemed repulsed at the idea. Carl/Desiree was a homophobe? The local media would have a field day. “I thought maybe some, you know, just ‘identified’ as women. But most of these boys are just out and out gay.”

  “Okay." Again, what was his point?

  “I’m telling you now you need to keep your sexual orientation to yourself. Sort of the don’t ask don’t tell policy, but if they ask you need to lie.”

  I laughed. He couldn’t be serious. Talk about reverse discrimination.

  “No,” he stubbed out his cigarette, “I’m serious. They accept that I’m not one of them. Actually I play it off saying I’m too old for them or that I don’t swim in the company pool, but some of them suspect. Many of them've received a bad hand from straight men - disapproving fathers, abusive uncles, that sort of thing. If they know you’re straight they will make your life miserable. I've seen it; it ain't pretty. If you think women can be catty you’ve never seen a room of ticked off gay cross dressers. You’ve seen Cujo?”

  “Read the book.”

  “Well, believe me, Stephen King’s got nothing on how these ladies can be.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “They’ll castrate you, honey. No exaggeration. Play the part, earn your money and keep quiet.”

  ***

  I can’t say I wasn’t nervous my first night. A Friday night with a sold out show and the nerves weren’t coming from the idea of playing the piano in drag, but instead festered from the notion of being trapped in a twenty-by-twenty dressing room with a pack of narrow-minded men. It would be the same feeling I’d have if I walked into a redneck bar wearing a Democratic Convention tee shirt.

  “Hey newbie, which one of us you like the best?” asked a Hispanic girl/boy in a red feathered dress.

  Play the part or lose your parts, rang through my head. I forced myself to calm down to keep from sweating off Sally’s hard work.

  “Um,” I scanned the room. Even if I were gay none of these guys would appeal to me. Too skinny trying to look ‘feminine’. “Wow, I can’t decide. It's like I’m in a candy shop.”

  That lame line garnered a chorus of giggles.

  “But which of us are you going to do first, Raylene?” The whole room turned its sequins and eyelashes toward me.

  Oh hell. I needed to play this as politic as I could.

  “Sorry, but I’m spoken for. My partner and I have been together for ages.”

  A sigh emanated from the room.

  “Are y’all gettin’ married?” twanged one of the girls.

  “Oh, you know the laws,” I affected a gay lisp from out of nowhere. “We get married, then we’re not married. I think we’ve been hitched about five times now.”

  “Ooh, is he gonna be here tonight?”

  Sally was going to be here. My heart pounded at the thought. How could I work with someone for three months and the thing that sends me gushing over her like a teenager is wearing her dress and makeup?

  “Um, no, he knows I get nervous in front of him”

  “Oh I know exactly how that goes. I could do a lap dance for the President, but if my mom walked in on one of my shows I’d freeze.”

  I was off the hook for a while. I played well and thanked Sally for “borrowing” the size ten wedges from the store with every pedal push. The whole thing was surprisingly fun until I got back in the dressing room and saw what the lights and sweat had turned me into – an old cocktail waitress at a shabby Vegas casino. My music was beautiful and catchy and fun, but every night I performed I knew I was living a lie. The “girls” would tear me apart if they discovered what I was and my situation left me afraid to ask Sally out.

  The money, however, kept me in the game. I was making $4,000 a month, not counting tips. Thanks to the eclectic tastes of the piano teacher my mom hired, I knew a bit of everything and my ability to play any request skyrocketed my salary and popularity. Unless a ravenous gang of cross dressers killed me for duping them for four months, I was doing all right.

  Still, I grew to love Sally more and more. I desperately looked forward to every second she did my make up, and refused her offers to teach me how to apply my own eye shadow to look best under the harsh limelight by insisting her hand was steadier. Every swish of the blusher and puff of air to clear off excess powder sent shudders down my spine. I wanted to kiss her as she applied the final coat of mascara, but feared she’d scold me for mussing my lipstick.

  I woke up every afternoon telling myself my life was a sham.

  I was hopeless and sick of the ruse. But the money was too good to turn back.

  “Sally,” I started hesitantly one evening as she applied concealer over a zit brought on by stress, “can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, anything. I’ve seen you tuck, there’s no secrets between us.”

  I hated the we’re-old-girlfriends tone in her voice. Was I ridiculous to think she might like me?

  “Well, I was wondering if you want to go out sometime?” My cheeks burned.

  She looked at me like I was a winged goat that sprouted out of the tomato plant she tended on her balcony. Not the look I was hoping for.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Just friends, I get it.”

  “No,” she said. “Oh Ray, I thought maybe you, w
ell, maybe,” she flourished her hand over me.

  “What, you think I’m gay?”

  “Well, you’re divorced, no girlfriend, and you took to this job so easily.”

  “At your goading. And if you recall it was your boredom that got me the audition. I’m divorced because my wife ran off with an investment banker after only a year of trying to live on a scientist’s wages. No, Sally, I am one hundred percent straight and I think about you every day and dream about you every night.”

  “All this time I just wrote you off as my gay friend. I mean, I can’t say I didn’t really wish you weren’t, but you’re not?”

  “No, there’s just one complication,” I brushed my hand over her hair.

  ***

  I stared out to the audience and felt a glow as I saw the person I loved.

  “I thought your guy didn’t come around to the shows,” said Marcus/Mariana.

  “We’re trying something new.”

  “Gotcha,” he/she winked. “Well, keep him away from backstage, all the girls want a piece of that. Good job on snagging that one.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  The lights dimmed and the show was on.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off Sally. I loved her. I even imagined proposing during a show - but for now I just stared at her. She looked so beautifully cute with her hair cropped short, no makeup, and dressed in my jeans and blazer. She winked at me and I played on.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Century Acres

  THIS IS ANOTHER story that started out as a contest, but took on a life of its own. I forget what the original first line was supposed to be, but it was something about Paul and Miriam Kaufman. This sounded like such a pair of old folks' names that I thought it would be interesting if they were two old people living in a retirement home who have the same last name but don't know each other. I began to picture Miriam having a huge crush on Paul like a teenage girl. Over revisions, the names changed and the story grew. It's a light, loving take on a serious disease.

  ***

  "We need to talk."

  "It's a cockamamie idea and I'm not discussing it."